If you see only one David Heavener film in your life … well, it’s clearly one too many. Heavener’s one of those guys who does practically everything in his low-budget action movies; in addition to starring and producing, he provides the witless writing, the lifeless direction and the atrocious music. (It’s a wonder he wasn’t credited with doing his own mullet-sculpting.) Despite all his involvement to the contrary, he can’t be an action hero, because he looks like the guy who last serviced my car.

In Twisted Justice, he plays Tucker, a quirky, renegade Los Angeles cop in the year 2020. How quirky and renegade, you ask? How’s sleeping in the bathtub in dirty longjohns with his jelly-donut-eating hamster for you? Tucker’s on the trail of a serial killer who murders hot, rich women connected to a chemical company.

Or, as his boss (Erik Estrada, TV’s CHiPs) puts it, “We’ve got a turbo-charged fruit loop here.” Congress has outlawed guns, however, so the cops have to make do with stun darts. Good thing our boy Tucker — who drives a beat-up car with the license plate “TUCK U” — still carries his illegal weapon, with bullets hidden inside a donut kept in a box next to his toilet.

Estrada is just one part of an all-star washed-up supporting cast that includes Jim Brown, Karen Black, James Van Patten, Shannon Tweed and a “special appearance by Gerald Milton.” (Wait, who? The executive producer.) It’s with Tweed that Heavener proves his true ineptness as a filmmaker: Who in the fuck casts Tweed and doesn’t write himself a five-minute sex scene with her? Heavener, that’s who. In fact, he doesn’t even have her take off her clothes. That’s just Twisted, dude. Now will you please rotate my tires while you’re at it?

Fun fact: This was the last movie I watched before nervously hopping on a plane for the first time after 9/11, mere weeks. If it had turned out to be the last movie of my life, I would’ve been pissed. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Technically, the eight films collected as The Hire are BMW commercials, but really, they’re rather exemplary models of short-form filmmaking. For the project, David Fincher and BMW rounded up A-list directors, with each assigned to bring their vision of The Driver (Clive Owen, Children of Men), a suave BMW wheelman-for-hire, to cinematic life. It’s like the Jason Statham franchise The Transporter reconfigured into an unofficial anthology film.

Unsurprisingly, the Asians fare very well, with John Woo’s “Hostage” being among the best of the lot. It has more thrills and twists in its 10 minutes than most feature-length action films (his especially). On the opposite end of the pulse meter — but every bit its equal in quality — is “The Follow,” from Chungking Express director Wong Kar Wai, about The Driver being hired to follow a wife suspected of infidelity. Ang Lee contributes a chase-as-operatic-ballet in “Chosen,” and manages to reference his much-hated Hulk in a clever ending.

Smokin’ Aces‘ Joe Carnahan delivers “Ticker,” a gritty tale with The Driver transporting Don Cheadle and his mysterious briefcase while they’re tailed by helicopters and machine-gun fire. “Ambush” was helmed by the late John Frankenheimer, who clearly knew a thing or two about car chases. The story from Amores Perros helmer Alejandro González Iñárritu — about getting a wounded combat photographer out of Central America — is a bit of a downer, but true to the filmmaker’s style.

Guy Ritchie’s “Star” lets then-wife Madonna poke fun at her image as a bitchy singer who gets roughed up by The Driver’s insane street driving. It attempts comedy with success, which cannot be said about Tony Scott’s entry, so embarrassingly over-the-top in its own pretentiousness that you can understand why critics hounded him his entire career. But one stinker out of eight cannot spoil the overall package. Even with so many unique touches at work, The Hire works as an overall whole, thanks to Owen’s cucumber-cool persona and pinwheel-precision skills behind the wheel. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.